Rockbox Player - Project to design and build a Free/Open hardware audio player

[scharkalvin]

There are many devices out there which run Linux in conjunction with closed-source drivers and applications

True (think Tivo).  However the development board I am talking about IS completely open source and ALL the hw info IS available from Atmel.

[zajacattack]

OK, I have a few comments:

(1) I am surprised at the lack of support for this idea. If we do not start doing this soon, we will run out of modifiable players that are on the market. You can see from the new iPods and Sansas that they are getting less and less modifiable.

(2) I agree that a player that could run a form of Linux, such as the older iPods would definitely be a good idea.

(3) Why not start a line of Rockbox players by modifying current players and loading them all with Rockbox?

[Btwizt]

(3) Why not start a line of Rockbox players by modifying current players and loading them all with Rockbox?

One very easy way to get in a very deep pile of legal trouble.

[cool_walking_]

(1) I am surprised at the lack of support for this idea. If we do not start doing this soon, we will run out of modifiable players that are on the market. You can see from the new iPods and Sansas that they are getting less and less modifiable.

Yeah, I think it's a great idea, but I know even less about hardware than I do about software.

(3) Why not start a line of Rockbox players by modifying current players and loading them all with Rockbox?

One very easy way to get in a very deep pile of legal trouble.

How so? Is it illegal to resell an mp3 player now?

[scharkalvin]

How so? Is it illegal to resell an mp3 player now?

Yeah, go police EBAY on THAT one!  (or woot.com, who right now has a
refurb Sansa E260 for $49)


If you bought an MP3 player you (in theory) also bought a license to use the MP3 codec on that player.  You can resell that license when you resell the player.  If you were to provide different software, the license to use the codec in that software should come along with the hardware that was licensed as well.

Now, if we were to MAKE our own hardware we would NOT have had the license to provide the MP3 codec.  No problem, DON'T provide the codec with our hardware (can always use a free codec such as ogg).

[Btwizt]

Actaully it would be illegal to sell Rockbox, wouldnt it?

[linuxstb]

Actaully it would be illegal to sell Rockbox, wouldnt it?

Not at all - it's perfectly legal to sell Rockbox, as long as you comply with the other conditions in the GNU GPL (the license Rockbox is distributed under):

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html

[Btwizt]

well then all my points are null and void.

[alsaf]

since everybody is replying to this I thought I'd join the fun!!

I am surprised at the lack of support for this idea.

You might want to check this

http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=13688.0

If we do not start doing this soon, we will run out of modifiable players that are on the market.

From this particular forum there are plenty of unfinished porting projects.

You can see from the new iPods and Sansas that they are getting less and less modifiable.

Whether you like it or not, manufacturers are not out to make products that are modifiable. They are out to protect their IP and to make their products cheaper to produce and ensure they are able to meet demand. This is the reason why the switch to using different parts.  

Maybe I'm not getting it but isn't the point of resverse-engineering to produce firmware for a particular platform to use in  devices that manufacturers are unwilling to supply?  

[casainho]

One development platform that I've seen is the NGW100 from Atmel.  This uses their AVR32 cpu.  This processor is an arm-like risc (not an arm instruction set) with lots of on board I/O.  It has a 16bit 50khz sample rate stereo DAC that is suitable for AC97 style audio.  It also has a build in color LCD driver that will do up to 2048x2048 pixels, dual 10/100 ethernet, high speed USB, external flash memory interface, pixel co-processor for video acceleration, etc.  It's supported by GNU tools (Atmel even has a version of their AVR studio jtag debugger that runs on Linux).

scharkalvin, I understand your idea. I think the best shot is find an development board with free docs of hardware! Atmel is nice because they have good community forums (IMO), GCC compilers, full datasheet microcontrollers, and theirs ICs are easy to get and will not disappear soon.

You said AVR32, but they also have an ARM right? - for what I understand, RockBox have good support for ARMs... what would be the good choice? ARM or AVR32? - Atmel have ARM and AVR32 dev board...

scharkalvin, what is your domain? in what could you help? Software porting of RB? - please read more about the RockBoxPlayer project:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/RockBoxPlayer

I bought recently a Sansa e200, and now Sandisk changed Sansa e200 and others to Version 2 of hardware and software - no RB on V2.. and the energies put on RB for Sansa e200 V1 was worth of it?

[zajacattack]

Whether you like it or not, manufacturers are not out to make products that are modifiable. They are out to protect their IP and to make their products cheaper to produce and ensure they are able to meet demand. This is the reason why the switch to using different parts.  

Maybe I'm not getting it but isn't the point of resverse-engineering to produce firmware for a particular platform to use in  devices that manufacturers are unwilling to supply?

No, my point is that it's getting harder and harder. The Sansa e200 and eariler iPods were reverse-engineered. The e200R took a while, but was also cracked. The new iPods seem really hard to crack as well as the e200v2. Also, the iPhones have not come close to being cracked. My point is, it gets harder and harder, eventually so it's not possible. RockBox needs its own player before all targets that can run RockBox are off the market.

[casainho]

Maybe I'm not getting it but isn't the point of resverse-engineering to produce firmware for a particular platform to use in  devices that manufacturers are unwilling to supply?

No, my point is that it's getting harder and harder. The Sansa e200 and eariler iPods were reverse-engineered. The e200R took a while, but was also cracked. The new iPods seem really hard to crack as well as the e200v2. Also, the iPhones have not come close to being cracked. My point is, it gets harder and harder, eventually so it's not possible. RockBox needs its own player before all targets that can run RockBox are off the market.
[/quote]
Maybe there is no future for RockBox... because RockBox is very simple and todays demands are for multimedia!! - RockBox even can't play album art in JPG, for example.

On the other side, we now have systems with processors capable of running Linux - and with Linux we have ALL - sound, image and video!!! Would RockBox developers re-invent the wheel? - I don't think so.

About hardware, I think that company's are all time making new versions, for a lot of reasons, I can say one or two important: cut prices - new IC's, cheap and with more capabilities, less power. And with this changes, that will be faster every day with technology, RB developers will not have time, while company's have because that have all the information about hardware/software.

I think is important to have RB as an application for Linux or other OS, or RB will not exist. But, is there the need of RB when you can have MPlayer or VLC that does better what RB do?

I think that hardware for RB should have a processor that will not gone from shops on short time. Also should have all information public and with GCC port. Better If is an ARM, because there is a lot of work done for ARM in RB.

Also we should no pursue the multimedia tendency, but the audio quality, play, register and share audio only.

[alsaf]

Quote by Casainho

Maybe there is no future for RockBox... because RockBox is very simple and todays demands are for multimedia!! - RockBox even can't play album art in JPG, for example

I'm in no position to judge whether there is a future for multimedia on portable devices but I can say for certainty is that there will always be demand for a portable music only player whether it is for exercise, out walking or sitting on public transport.

Where there is demand for these types of devices there will always be demand for RockBox.

Another thing not to be sneered at is second hand players. Most of the players that have RB releases can be picked up quite cheaply and RB furthers the lifespan of these by providing new features.

[Llorean]

First: Not all hardware is necessarily getting harder to port for. If this were the case, we wouldn't be running our own code on the Gigabeat S, M:Robe, Tatung Elio, and other players.

What's getting harder is to find developers willing to put in the time and the effort to do the work for a new player. We've gathered a great selection of developers, but in general, they're working on improving Rockbox on the players it already runs on. Which is great, since it means more features and less bugs. But with new hardware there's a tendency for people to show up and expect us to work on it for them, rather than to show up and say "I'm willing to learn whatever it takes."

Some hardware is getting harder to port for, yes, but some companies are beginning to release more information than they did in the past, too, so it's impossible to say unequivocally that it's getting harder or that it's getting easier. The situation just changes back and forth over time.

As to the second, referring to more powerful hardware and the fact that Rockbox can't do jpeg cover art: Rockbox gets good battery life. Not on the PortalPlayer PP502x gadgets because there's some issues still, but on the PP5002 series, and all non-PP players we surpass the original firmware's battery life. This is, in part, because of the efficiency you can get from a custom coded operating system, and partially because we don't waste CPU time and memory on things that can be done faster on the PC side in advance. JPEG album art might make it in one day, or might not, but a lot of features that don't make it in are for this reason. "Multimedia" features such as multiple video codecs are a similar situation.

Because of this though, Rockbox as a stand alone firmware will always have the potential to get better battery life and performance than MPlayer on Linux on the same hardware. So, if you're actually buying a portable player for portability and on-battery use, Rockbox will always be an alternative if you actually want efficiency.

[scharkalvin]

You said AVR32, but they also have an ARM right? - for what I understand, RockBox have good support for ARMs... what would be the good choice? ARM or AVR32? - Atmel have ARM and AVR32 dev board...

Well it looked like the avr32 had everything but the kitchen sink in it, including the required AC97 D/A, LCD hardware interface, flash memory interface, USB interface, and even ethernet!  Their arm offerings would require external hw to do much of this.  The downside is having to work with BGA packages, but that's what the world is going to.